Composting

Nothing does more for a garden than good compost. It's the best way to improve soil and
create a perfect home, teeming with life, for the roots of your plants. But what is compost,
exactly? And how do you get it?

If you've walked in the forest, you've probably kicked up leaves and seen the layer of
light, fluffy, brown humus -- decayed plant and animal matter --at the top of the soil. It is
essential to plant life, in forests and everywhere else.

Compost is humus too, but created from the leaves, weeds, grass clippings and other plant
waste that every garden provides. The actual compost-makers are the same bacteria, fungi,
arthropods, insects, earthworms and other living things that make humus in nature. All we
gardeners do is set them to work in a compact space that's convenient for us and provide them
with supplies of food, water and oxygen.

If you carefully manage the community of composters, you will get usable compost faster and
more reliably. But if you don't bother, compost will happen anyway. It will just take
longer.

So, let's get started:
Choose a spot. Make your compost where it's handy, both for adding material and for
harvesting the finished product. Since a compost pile is rarely the loveliest thing in the
garden, tuck it away in a far corner, in back of the garage or behind a hedge or shrub. In a
small garden with few nooks, consider a tidy covered bin (which will also deter animals). You
will need a space at least three feet square and high; smaller piles don't reach critical mass.
The process will take less square footage and be more efficient in a bin that encloses it on at
least three sides. But be sure that there is room at the opening for you and your wheelbarrow
when you dig finished compost out.

Provide a balanced diet. Different
creatures in the compost pile have different food preferences. Some consume material higher in
carbon, such as dead leaves and twigs; others go for material higher in nitrogen, such as fresh
green foliage and grass clippings. Compost scientists have determined that the most efficient
ratio is about two parts carbon-rich material to one part nitrogen-rich material. For garden
purposes, exact proportions aren't essential. Just bear in mind that you want more brown stuff
than green stuff and aim for variety.

Collect your leaves. A fine source
of carbon-rich material arrives free every autumn: the leaves that fall from the trees. Dead
leaves alone are a good start on a compost pile, though you'll get more action if you mix them
with grass clippings and other green stuff. Since gardens create so much green waste during the
rest of the year, many gardeners collect leaves in fall and keep a stash near the compost pile
for spring and summer. Keep leaves in a pile or in plastic garbage bags (where fungi may
start breaking them down).

Forage in the kitchen. A lot of
kitchen waste is fine food for a compost pile: fruit and vegetable peels, cores and trimmings;
coffee grounds (including paper filters) and tea bags; too-old produce from the refrigerator
drawers; eggshells (which eventually release useful calcium). But don't include meats or dairy,
bread or oils (which rules out dressed salads).

Add dirt. The organisms that will
make your compost -- or their eggs -- are already present in healthy soil. A couple of shovels
full will get a new pile going. Bacteria and other creatures that find a food supply will start
to reproduce and create a community of breakdown artists. For an extra good start, beg a good
gardener for a gallon or so of already-busy compost.

Add water. Start your pile off with
a good soak and try to keep it about as moist as a damp sponge. Rain will help, but plan to
water the pile when it's dry or hot.

Add air. The compost-makers need
oxygen to reproduce and feed. An airless compost pile caters to the wrong kind of bacteria,
which stop the useful decay and produce a stink. So to aerate the pile, turn it over with a
garden fork, mixing it and fluffing it, every few weeks or more often. This also will assure
that all the material gets broken down.

Wait. It will take several months for the whole array of composting creatures to work over a
new compost pile. The time will depend on the climate (the process slows or stops during cold
weather or when the pile dries out), the mix of ingredients, how much you fuss and many other
factors. Start checking the interior of the pile for doneness after about four months. Once you
have some composting experience, you'll get a feel for how long it takes in your garden.

Harvest. Compost is done when it is
dark brown and fluffy and most of it is no longer recognizable as the leaves, stalks or rinds
you started with. It should have a clean, earthy smell. You should find earthworms, millipedes
and other bugs that are at the top of the compost-pile food chain. In open piles that aren't
turned often, the good stuff will be in the middle. You will always find undigested chunks;
just toss them back in for further work. Some people sift compost to a fine, regular texture,
using a special compost sifter (or a milk crate). Others are content to use chunky
compost.

Fine-tune your compost pile:
If you are willing to tinker, there are a number of ways to make the composting process faster
and more efficient.

Turn more often. More oxygen
permits more reproduction for faster decay.

Add smaller pieces. Bacteria -- the
first shift of composters -- feed and reproduce on surfaces. Smaller pieces have more surface
area for their volume. So if you shred or cut up the materials you add, they will start
breaking down faster. Large sticks and chunks of wood may not break down for years.

Make a bigger pile. More volume
supports a larger population of bacteria and fungi. It also holds heat more efficiently. A
large, moist, airy pile of fresh material may actually start to smoke; that's because in the
early stages, fast-reproducing bacteria generate heat as they feed. Only a large compost pile
is likely to get hot enough -- at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit -- to kill weed seeds or kill
disease organisms. But don't make the pile so big you can't manage to turn it regularly.

Expand your empire. Some
composters, not content to make one batch at a time, keep three rotating bins: one "current"
pile to which they are adding material; one that is full and "cooking"; and a third that is
finished and ready to use.

Get the gadget. To maintain the
range of 110 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit in which composting bacteria work most efficiently, a
hard-core tinkerer will want a $20 compost thermometer.

Do add to the compost pile:

Dried Leaves

Grass clippings

Flowers, leaves and stems from deadheading, pinching back or tidying up